Renovation & Design
Renovation & Design
ASK THE INSPECTOR: When fixing someone else's mistake, get it right the second time
QUESTION: I have a bit of a problem I was hoping you could help me with. I bought my first house approximately three years ago. The basement is finished and has a bathroom with a corner shower unit. Unfortunately, when the previous owners installed the shower stall, they did so over a window! Last summer I noticed the glass was starting to come loose and it is an old single pane window. With all these storms lately, the glass has come loose on one side, which allowed some snow to enter. I blocked the window with a board temporarily. How should I permanently address this issue since I cannot access it from the inside of my house?
Thank you. Nancy Barbosa
ANSWER: Fixing someone else's mistakes, especially when it comes to home renovations, can be a major pain in the neck. You are undoubtedly faced with this challenge in your home, but yours should not be too difficult a repair as long as you take a few things into consideration when attempting this job.
Improper or amateurish renovations are some of the most frequent and frustrating issues that come up during a typical home inspection. This is even more prevalent in recent years with "contractors" buying homes for a quick sale or "flip." There are even annoying hosts on television who attempt to show you how to buy a home and successfully flip it so you can get rich. In reality, most re-sale homes require more than just a little cosmetic touch-up and often buyers get in over their heads. I would expect the previous homeowner, in your case, may have become embroiled in such a situation, or simply didn't know the proper method to install the shower. The old window may have provided some natural ventilation for the basement, prior to the bathroom installation, but now has become ineffective. I hope the renovator had enough sense to at least install a properly vented exhaust fan after covering the window with the shower enclosure. Removing or covering up the window in that case would make sense, but it has to be done properly to prevent further problems.
Covering an older window when bathrooms are renovated is a common occurrence as modern rooms of this type should have mechanical ventilation instead. That can be provided by a single exhaust fan, central exhaust fan or heat recovery ventilator. The main difficulty, when this is attempted, is to nicely match the patched window with the rest of the exterior surface without it standing out significantly. When this is done in the main living area, siding or stucco has to be added, which can be tough to match. In your basement area, the method of covering the window from the exterior will depend on the exterior surface of the foundation or walls. This could range from fairly easy to moderately difficult, depending on the current condition.
It should not be that tough to remove the old damaged window from the exterior to allow proper patching and sealing of the area. This should probably be done in warmer weather and your temporary patching may last until the spring when this could be more easily completed. After the old window is removed, likely by breaking the remaining glass and unhooking or cutting the sash, patching the opening should not be that difficult.
If the existing frame or buck, which is embedded in the foundation wall, is in relatively good condition and not rotted, it can be left in place. It can be used to mount wood stops near the inside face of the foundation wall. After that, a piece of plywood, oriented strand board, or other moisture resistant sheathing, can be cut to fit the opening and fastened to the stops. Now that the old window opening is covering on the inside, installation of a few layers of extruded polystyrene foam insulation, cut to fit the opening and fill almost the entire depth, should be glued in place. Each layer of this insulation should be caulked around the perimeter, with proper sealant designed for use with rigid foam insulation, to prevent air leakage from the bathroom into the cavity. Once this is nicely sealed, the exterior portion of the old opening can be covered, ideally with pressure-treated plywood, which can be fastened to the outside portion of the old buck. If the old buck is rotten, it should be cut out and replaced by new treated wood secured to the foundation opening prior to installation of both layers of plywood.
If the foundation is bare concrete and there is a gap between the top of the opening and the siding above, painting the new plywood grey to match the foundation may be the easiest solution. If this does not appeal to you cosmetically, which is a definite possibility, you may chose to cover the plywood instead. If the concrete foundation has a parging coat, covering it may be a better alternative to simple paint. If that is your situation and desire, the plywood should be installed with a small recess inside the exterior face of the concrete which will allow building paper or Tyvec and metal lath to be secured to the plywood. Once installed, a scratch coat of mortar can be mixed up and troweled over the wire mesh. After this cures, a top coat matching the existing foundation parging can be adhered to the surface to blend in to the surrounding foundation.
Despite the laziness of the individual who did not properly cover the old window in the bathroom in the basement of your home, it may not be that tricky to remedy the situation. The main concern is doing a proper job of insulating and air-sealing this area to prevent condensation and mould growth behind the shower. The cosmetic aspects of this repair should also be taken into consideration, but may be relatively easily done to satisfy your needs and desires.
Ari Marantz is the owner of Trained Eye Home Inspection Ltd. and the President of the Canadian Association of Home & Property Inspectors -- Manitoba (www.cahpi.mb.ca). Questions can be emailed to the address below. Ari can be reached at 204-291-5358 or check out his website at www.trainedeye.ca.
trainedeye@iname.com
Renovation & Design
ASK THE INSPECTOR: Seepage may date back to foundation error
QUESTION: I would like your opinion on a situation with the basement in our home. We have a Logix Styrofoam/concrete basement in a six-year-old home. We had some water leakage into the basement a couple of years after the home was built. The water was nothing significant, but it was cause for some concern.
We had a contractor come in to assess the situation in the spring of 2011. He found some cracks in the foundation and suggested filling the cracks and sealing the basement where the water was coming in with crack injections with a compound that expands and seals once it comes into contact with water. After this was done, we did not have any water leakage in the basement for the rest of the spring or summer, even though it was the wettest in the past 50 years. Before, when we had the cracks in the foundation, if there was a heavy rain we would see some leakage.
In the spring of 2012, I noticed a small amount of water dribble in at the same location over a couple of days and then stop. We have not had any water problems since, even though this past spring has again been very wet.
We have had some heavy rains and I even soaked the area with a sprinkler on a couple of occasions and there was no leakage. My sump pump has been running since the spring and I do not think there is a problem with the weeping tile.
We are stumped as to where that little bit of water could have come from. We had considered excavating down to the footings to check the weeping tile, replace the blue skin and add dimple membrane to that part of the foundation. This would be very costly as well as messy, because we have a patio on that side of the house.
What could have been the source of this water? Do you have any possible suggestions or solutions? Is there a need to worry about any future leakage? We would appreciate your thoughts and opinions on this matter.
Sheldon Kaminski, Langenburg, Sask.
ANSWER: The answer to your question about the source of the moisture is easy, compared to the possible repair scenarios. It is difficult to figure out what is going on with your newer foundation without knowing the soil conditions or construction of the homes in your area. I will offer some suggestions, but will focus more on the likely true cause of your predicament.
Insulated concrete form (ICF) foundations are becoming very popular in some areas due to their excellent insulation properties and ease of installation. Unfortunately, with most newer building technologies there may be a learning curve for contractors who are used to older methods of construction.
More troubling than that is the possibility of amateurs assuming they have the expertise to use these new systems when they may be in over their heads. I would expect your home is a product of one of these two issues. If properly installed, there should be no reason for a new foundation to crack, especially an ICF foundation. This could be a problem with the concrete mix or installation, steel reinforcing, waterproofing, grading, or other defect.
Figuring out which factor or variables are deficient in your foundation may be tricky, and even if you dig down to the footing you may not be able to determine the issue unless you were present during the forming and pouring of the ICFs.
Regardless, there should be no reason for a foundation to have significant cracks in its first decade, unless a serious error was made. I am also surprised a contractor was so easily able to identify the cracks, as the polystyrene inside and outside of this system could hide them, unless they were large enough to displace the foam forms, exposing the concrete itself. If that is the situation, filling these with some form of expanding material will not be a permanent repair.
If the cracks are significant in size, they are due to movement of the foundation walls. This could occur due to early backfilling before the concrete was cured, insufficient reinforcement, or freezing concrete.
If any of these issues is the root cause of the moisture, there is no guarantee the foundation walls will not continue to move, even after injecting the cracks. Hydrostatic pressure from the soil outside the foundation is the likely source of the seepage and this may cause the cracks to expand further, or new ones to develop. If this occurs, it could allow the waterproofing membrane to become damaged, making future leakage a certainty.
Because of the serious implications of future foundation movement on your new home, immediate evaluation is critical. Inspection of the home by a professional structural engineer would be a good place to start. If you have the plans for the home, you may want to contact the engineer who reviewed the plans prior to construction to see if his or her specifications were followed. A stamp with the individual's name should be visible on the foundation plan. If this is not possible, a call to the local Association of Professional Engineers may provide assistance in locating an expert in your area.
Regardless of the specifics of where the water is coming from in your leaky new foundation, I'm afraid I suspect someone made a serious mistake during construction that has led to excessive cracking. Finding the defect should be the first priority, which will point the way to the proper repairs in preventing further deterioration and leakage.
Ari Marantz is the owner of Trained Eye Home Inspection Ltd. and the president of the Canadian Association of Home & Property Inspectors -- Manitoba (www.cahpi.mb.ca). Questions can be emailed to the address below. Ari can be reached at (204) 291-5358 or check out his website at www.trainedeye.ca .
trainedeye@iname.com
Renovation & Design
Valuable advice given at renovation show
Last week at the Winnipeg Convention Centre, numerous experts were on hand to share advice with thousands of Manitobans intent on doing a renovation to their home.
The Kitchen, Bath and Renovation Show featured hundreds of booths displaying fabulous products that would make any home look like a castle.
Guest speakers were on hand to help you turn tired into terrific.
Following are some highlights from various presenters and things that I learned over the weekend:
Andrew Downward taught us how to carry out the perfect paint job (Preparation, Preparation, Application). We learned about brush management, ensuring that walls remain smooth, the W method of using rollers and the importance of buying the right tape for the job.
He told us the greatest difficulty people have is deciding on colours and he had a wonderful suggestion for making the decision. He told us to look inside our clothes closets, or better yet our wives' clothes closets, as they have better colour co-ordination and see what colours we like and wear.
If these are our favourite colours to wear every day, then they are likely our favourite colours to paint our walls.
Michael Penney gave the crowd a number of handy pointers on how to turn small DIY projects into features and make walls and rooms stand out.
The simplest items such as cushion covers, framed hangings and table covers can bring life to otherwise plain surroundings.
He also gave sage career advice to young people about realizing and pursuing your passion and then turning it into a career.
Tony Teunis and Mike Kerr from All Canadian Renovations spoke of the importance of picking the right renovator, a RenoMark renovator, one who puts everything in writing, puts a warranty on their work and avoids the discount cash deal.
In other words, they spoke of hiring a qualified, ethical contractor and not just the pursuit of the cheapest price.
Finally, Mariel Hemingway shared many life lessons and the importance of a healthy lifestyle coupled with healthy products. Hers was a fascinating life story that appears to be one of happiness after many tragedies.
Now that we have all of this vital information, we will be able to expand it to our entire home and garden at the Home Expressions Show March 15-17 at the Winnipeg Convention Centre.
Mike Moore is president of the Manitoba Home Builders' Association.